Helmetless in Philly

[Fat Cat]

I wonder if childhood head injuries had anything to do with what happened yesterday?

[benb]

I rode into the city last weekend on the bike paved bikeway.

You get ~6 miles in closer to Boston from where I am and you start seeing the rental bike stations.

No one actually carries a helmet around to be prepared when they impromptu decide renting one of the bikes would be convenient.

I think it's just another factor in the whole bike advocacy helmets not required thing. It's all the tail wagging the dog. More people will ride if helmets are not required. People will feel more safe if they can ride on protected bike paths. If people feel more safe on protected bike paths it's easier to justify no helmets to themselves. If more people ride this way than it's even easier to go to the politicians and demand more lanes.

And yet I feel like that ride was definitely one the most dangerous rides of the year for me, by a pretty solid margin.

The thing is no matter what they get built if you want to wear a helmet you can.

Somebody posted one of those John Forrester interview things last week. That really hit home the divide. He was clueless about what makes most modern bike advocates and urban cyclists tick. He was all about evidence. They are all about feelings. A large swath of people don't actually care rationally about whether their bike behavior is safe. They only care about whether they feel safe. The interviewer from bicycling magazine even said it over and over to him. "But I feel safe, isn't that what matters?". It reminds me a lot of the interactions between scientists or doctors and the average person. So many technical people have so much trouble bridging this gap that the average person can't understand their evidence and just repeating evidence doesn't help. (And bike safety should be much easier to understand than a lot of these topics.)

[SlowPokePete]

I would attribute it to the majority of the US population being stupid with nothing inside their heads to actually protect.

SPP

[AngryScientist]

It ain't Marin County, that's for sure.

This is a dumb thread.